Six o'clock in the morning, our house is packed full of sleepy guests. Six of them slept on two sofa beds in the lounge. These are students from Ekaterinburg and Novosibirsk who have come to be part of our annual summer project. This year we are going North, 400 miles due North. To the golden heart of Siberia.
Northern Eniseisk is a settlement not big enough merit the designation, town. Despite its size it produces around 15 tones of pure gold every year. We were invited to visit by Olga, who is the mother of one of our students. She has been a missionary here on her own for the last year and a half. Her church now numbers four or five regulars, a former drug addict who went through a Christian rehab center, two ladies baptized a few months ago in a hole cut through the ice of one of the local rivers and a handful of children.
The second reason we are here is the initiative of one of the region's top officials, Mr. Bragin. He provided us with transport and invited us to be part of his social work program for the summer.
| The northern Eniseisk region covers 47,000 square kilometers on average it is 500-600 meters above sea level. The climate is extremely continental with temperatures ranging between –67 and +39 degrees centigrade the average temperature is –4.4 degrees C. Around 45,000 square kms are Forrest. The capital of this region is the village of Northern Eniseisk 654 km North of Krasnoyarsk 295 of which are gravel road. The population is 14,000 of whom, just 33 are Evenk (Tungus), the original native inhabitants. |
Our jorney started in a 15 person mini-bus which took us five hours and 200
miles north to the town of Eniseisk. There we transferred to a 22 person
“PAZik” (like half a normal bus) in which we spent the next 13 hours. The road
to Northern Eniseisk is a dirt track which leads first to the Enesey where a
ferry takes us and our bus 3 miles across the river. A quick stop at
“Eldorado”, the last cafe along the way and we are off rattling and bumping
along at about 30 mph. The soft hearted driver picked up a few passengers at
the cafe so instead of 14 spread out over the bus we
were about 30, some of the new-comers sitting on the floor, some standing. The
heat was oppressive, but we did not dare open the windows more than a crack
because of the dust, which already sticks to our faces and gathers in our
nostrils. Occasional stops gave us the chance to stretch our legs and to cool
off, but even they are marred by the hungry gnats who appear from no where like
left-overs from an Old Testament plague.
The scenery is all “taiga”, dense forest of larch, pine, birch and cedar. Occasional hills afford us views into the distance and several small rivers cross our path. The forests contain all manor of wildlife (not just the gnats), at one point a baby bear ran out into the road ahead of the bus, but was easily frightened away by the horn (no time for a picture unfortunately). We were glad that we did not meet its mother when the driver told us that she would have no qualms about taking on a bus like ours!
We arrived at the school that was to be our home at 2:30 am, it was still
light because of the white nights, and the caretaker was waiting for us. There
was nowhere much to wash and no hot water, so like many students we went to
sleep almost as soon as we got into the classroom!
The next days were full of activity and I will only touch on a few events which I hope will give you a taste of what it was like.
One of Mr. Bragin's projects was a work brigade that provided employment for
teenage boys. We spent one of our days with them. In the morning we helped them
as they worked on an open air Ice Hockey box (rink). First we had to clear away
the old fence posts, unfortunately, we had not been provided with shovels and
the posts were set in concrete and buried. We managed to get around the problem
by talking the driver of the truck (who had come to take away the rubbish) into
pulling them out with his steel tow-rope. In the course of the morning we got
to know the lads a little. Some of them were very enterprising (one had a
conditional prison sentence for printing 50 rouble notes one his cousins laser
printer!). After lunch we played football with a smaller group of them (first
time I had played for about 15 years!) and showed them a short film with some
Christian footballers.
Teya is a village of 2,000 or so, twenty miles away from Northern Eniseisk built around the gold-bearing river of the same name. We were invited to help on the first day of their summer club held at the local school. We decided to use one of the classrooms to pray and prepare before presenting our children's program. This worked fine for half an hour before the kids began to arrive and take an interest in the people from out of town! While the children's program went on I went to the club to set up for a film showing we planned for the afternoon. Then we were free to go around the village and invite people to the film. After a quick lunch I went to the club and just as I was cueing up the video the lights went out. The administrator picked up her phone and asked for the electric company (no numbers needed) who said that the power would be back on in forty minutes time, ten minutes after our film was due to start. I went back to the school to ask everyone to pray that the power would come on in time for the film. For some reason the children found this idea funny, so we included them in the prayer and told them, “you will see God will answer”. Sure enough to the great surprise of the children the lights came on ten minutes before the start of the film.
“Ivan Kupala” is celebrated on the 7 th of July, it is supposedly the birthday of John the Baptist. In Siberia, the day is marked by people drenching each other with water, on the evening before it is traditional to play tricks on people. The authorities in Northern Eniseisk, decided to hold a celebration at a playing field on the outskirts of the village by the airport. This was partly an attempt to frustrate tricksters. We were invited to contribute to the program of what promised to be a drunken discotheque. Although invited to say a few words about the religious significance of the day (actually more pagan than Christian) we decided some competitions with water would be more appropriate.
One of our girls immediately saw the potential of entertaining the kids and after an announcement gathered a small crowd of little people to play with. In the end we only ran one competition with the adults, but it did get us into the local paper the next day. We were anxious not to leave too late, as we knew from a reliable source that the fire engine standing by was not there in case the bonfire got out of control, but would be pouring water over the crowd some time after midnight (we heard the screams as we were leaving).On the way back I decided to buy some bread at an all night kiosk. The door turned out to be locked and the handle coated with tooth-paste! So much for frustrating the practical jokers!
Murat became our good friend during the project. He came to the events we
organized, he traveled with us to one village and helped, he came to church
with us and on the last night he even slept on our floor. We had several
serious conversations, but he has not yet received Christ.
The main aim of the project was to place students in a position where they have to trust God, and step out in faith. It was good to see Polina who rarely speaks, surrounded by a group of teenagers answering their questions about God and Lyonya sharing his faith for the first time, Slava preaching in Church and Tanya taking command of the children.
Please pray for Northern Eniseisk, for the church there and for Murat in particular. It is a special time of openness for this region, Mr. Bragin is a man of peace (the local Christians are praying that once converted he will be their Pastor!) who has opened many doors for ministry, the people are friendly and open to talk and the local Christians are praying for the harvest, won't you join them?
